(ANSAmed) - CAIRO, MAY 2 - The body of Osama bin Laden must be buried in the ground, and throwing it into the sea would be a 'sin', said Mahmoud Ashour of the Al Azhar Academy of Islamic Research, the most prestigious Sunni educational institute, while speaking to ANSA.

The Al Azhar official rejected the idea of sea burial of the Al Qaida leader for "trivial motives", explaining that even when someone drowns, the body must be searched for in order to be able to "bury it in the ground". "They should bury it in the ground without putting anything on the grave," explained Ashour, responding to a question about whether Osama bin Laden's burial could become a sort of pilgrimage site. (ANSAmed).

WASHINGTON: Just hours after American Navy Seals shot dead Osama bin Laden in a compound in Pakistan on Sunday, US President Barack Obama shot down the Pakistani security establishment's attempt to claim joint credit for the operation.

In a ten-minute television address, Obama left no doubt that US personnel alone were involved in the action that brought bin Laden to justice. ''Today, at my direction, the United States launched a targeted operation against that compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan,'' Obama said, adding, ''A small team of Americans carried out the operation with extraordinary courage and capability.''

While Obama said ''It's important to note that our counterterrorism cooperation with Pakistan helped lead us to bin Laden and the compound where he was hiding,'' he made no mention of any Pakistani military role in the operation. US officials in background briefing made it clear that no country, much less Pakistan, was informed of the operation.

In fact, there was not even a word of thanks for Pakistan. Instead, Obama said: ''Tonight, I called President Zardari, and my team has also spoken with their Pakistani counterparts. They agree that this is a good and historic day for both of our nations. And going forward, it is essential that Pakistan continue to join us in the fight against al-Qaida and its affiliates.''

The finger of suspicion is now pointing squarely at the Pakistani military and intelligence for sheltering and protecting Osama bin Laden before US forces hunted him down and put a bullet in his head in the wee hours of Sunday. The coordinates of the action and sequence of events indicate that the al-Qaida fugitive may have been killed in an ISI safehouse.

US analysts uniformly suggested that the Pakistani security establishment's claim of a role in the operation is clearly aimed at ducking charges of its military's possible role in hiding bin Laden. ''This is hugely embarrassing for Pakistan,'' was a common refrain on US TV channels throughout the night.

In fact, top US officials have openly suggested for months that the Pakistani military establishment was hiding bin Laden. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton came closest to publicly exposing Pakistan's role last May when she accused some government officials there of harboring Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar.

''I am not saying they are at the highest level...but I believe somewhere in this government are people who know where Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida and where Mullah Omar and the leadership of the Taliban are,'' Clinton said on May 10 last year, adding, ''We expect more cooperation (from Pakistan) to help us bring to justice capture or kill those who brought us 9/11.''

Taken together with President Obama's pointed reference to President Zardari and leaving out any mention of Pakistani forces' involvement, it would seem that Washington believes that Pakistan's military intelligence establishment, including the ISI, was sheltering bin Laden. The ISI was accused as recently as last week by the top US military official Admiral Mike Mullen of having terrorist links, and named as a terrorist support entity by US officials, according to the Guantanamo cables.

Lending credence to the charges is the fact that US forces homed in on bin Laden in Abbottabad, which is a cantonment just 50 kms from Islamabad, where the Pakistani military has a strong presence. The place where bin Laden was killed is only kilometers from the Kakul military academy, where many Pakistani military elites, including some of its ISI cadres, graduate from.

While US officials are tightlipped about precise details, analysts are trying to figure out whether the compound that sheltered bin Laden was an ISI safehouse. There is also speculation as to whether Hillary Clinton was referring to this when she made her pointed remarks last May.

US officials have said for years that they believed bin Laden escaped to Pakistan after the American bombing campaign in Afghanistan. But Pakistani officials, including its former military ruler Pervez Musharraf, insisted that he was in Afghanistan, even as Afghan officials would angrily refute it and say he is in Pakistan. In the end, the Americans and Afghans were right on the money.

NOEL CELIS/AFP/Getty ImagesA man in Manila watches news coverage of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden’s deathSummaryThe killing of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden represents possibly the biggest clandestine operations success for the United States since the capture of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in 2003. The confirmation of his death is an emotional victory for the United States and could have wider effects on the geopolitics of the region, but bin Laden’s death is irrelevant for al Qaeda and the wider jihadist movement from an operational perspective.

AnalysisAmericans continued to celebrate the killing of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden well into May 2 outside the White House, near the World Trade Center site in New York and elsewhere. The operation that led to bin Laden’s death at a compound deep in Pakistan is among the most significant operational successes for U.S. intelligence in the past decade. While it is surely an emotional victory for the United States and one that could have consequences both for the U.S. role in Afghanistan and for relations with Pakistan, bin Laden’s elimination will have very little effect on al Qaeda as a whole and the wider jihadist movement.

Due to bin Laden’s status as the most-wanted individual in the world, any communications he carried out with other known al Qaeda operatives risked interception, and thus risked revealing his location. This forced him to be extremely careful with communications for operational security and essentially required him to give up an active role in command-and-control in order to remain alive and at large. He reportedly used a handful of highly trusted personal couriers to maintain communication and had no telephone or Internet connection at his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Limited as his communications network was, if news reports are accurate, one of these couriers was compromised and tracked to the compound, enabling the operation against bin Laden.

Because of bin Laden’s aforementioned communications limitations, since October 2001 when he fled Tora Bora after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, he has been relegated to a largely symbolic and ideological role in al Qaeda. Accordingly, he has issued audiotapes on a little more than a yearly basis, whereas before 2007 he was able to issue videotapes. The growing infrequency and decreasing quality of his recorded messages was most notable when al Qaeda did not release a message marking the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks in September 2010 but later followed up with a tape on Jan. 21, 2011.

The reality of the situation is that the al Qaeda core — the central group including leaders like bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri — has been eclipsed by other jihadist actors on the physical battlefield, and over the past two years it has even been losing its role as an ideological leader of the jihadist struggle. The primary threat is now posed by al Qaeda franchise groups like al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, the latter of which may have carried out the recent attack in Marrakech, Morocco. But even these groups are under intense pressure by local government and U.S. operations, and much of the current threat comes from grassroots and lone wolf attackers. These actors could attempt to stage an attack in the United States or elsewhere in retribution for bin Laden’s death, but they do not have the training or capabilities for high-casualty transnational attacks.

STRATFOR long considered the possibility that bin Laden was already dead, and in terms of his impact on terrorist operations, he effectively was. That does not mean, however, that he was not an important ideological leader or that he was not someone the United States sought to capture or kill for his role in carrying out the most devastating terrorist attack in U.S. history.

Aggressive U.S. intelligence collection efforts have come to fruition, as killing bin Laden was perhaps the top symbolic goal for the CIA and all those involved in U.S. covert operations. Indeed, Obama said during his speech May 1 that upon entering office, he had personally instructed CIA Director Leon Panetta that killing the al Qaeda leader was his top priority. The logistical challenges of catching a single wanted individual with bin Laden’s level of resources were substantial, and while 10 years later, the United States was able to accomplish the objective it set out to do in October 2001. The bottom line is that from an operational point of view, the threat posed by al Qaeda — and the wider jihadist movement — is no different operationally after his death.

I'm expecting the muslim world to publicly celebrate the death of OBL, given he wasn't a muslim anyway, although we had to respectfully bury him like a muslim, although that wasn't good enough for al azhar, oh and the muslim brotherhood is upset, luckily they are a secular group of somekind.....

Yup, the joyous crowds of the "Vast majority of peaceful muslims" should be celebrating anytime now......

Note for Andrew: These are the people that can't say "Palestine" as they are the decendants of the arab invaders of the land Hadrian renamed "Palistinia" to spite the orignal Jewish inhabitants. Just wanted to be clear on this.

GAZA (Reuters) - The Palestinian Islamist group Hamas on Monday condemned the killing by U.S. forces of Osama bin Laden and mourned him as an "Arab holy warrior."

"We regard this as a continuation of the American policy based on oppression and the shedding of Muslim and Arab blood," Ismail Haniyeh, head of the Hamas administration in the Gaza Strip, told reporters.

Though he noted doctrinal differences between bin Laden's al Qaeda and Hamas, Haniyeh said: "We condemn the assassination and the killing of an Arab holy warrior. We ask God to offer him mercy with the true believers and the martyrs."

The death of Osama bin Laden at the hand of U.S. special forces doesn't end the war against Islamic terror, but it is a crucial and just victory that is rightfully cause for celebration.

Especially so in a war fought against combatants who hide in the world's dark corners, who rarely fight in the open and who attack innocents far from any conventional battlefield. Even if it took nearly 10 years, the skillful tracking and daring attack on al Qaeda's founder shows that democracies can prevail in such a struggle and is as notable as landmark victories of other wars that involved the taking of cities or island-hopping. The battle of Abbottabad is a triumph of intelligence, interrogation and special operations that are by necessity three of the main weapons in what the U.S. military has called this "long war."

***Credit goes to the intelligence gatherers, at the Pentagon, CIA or National Security Agency, who developed the leads and pursued them. President Obama also singled out the "extraordinary courage and capability" of the "small team" of special forces who carried out the risky mission deep inside Pakistan. U.S. special forces too rarely get attention for their perilous work because they must operate in secret, but this is a moment of triumph to savor amid all of their sacrifices.

Mr. Obama also deserves credit for ordering a special forces mission rather than settling for another attack with drones or stand-off weapons from afar. Drones have their uses, but a target as valuable as bin Laden was worth the gamble of a U.S. military raid both to reduce the chances of his escape and to end once and for all the myth that he couldn't be taken. The skill and success of the raid is also a boost to American prestige and pride at a moment of too much national self-doubt.

Yet if the mission had failed, the second-guessers would have asked why Mr. Obama hadn't merely ordered a drone strike. Pakistan's anti-American voices would have exploited the failure, and U.S. soldiers might have been captured or killed. These are nonetheless risks that Presidents must take to achieve larger purposes, and Mr. Obama deserves the praise he is receiving for taking them.

When Bin Laden Struck In the days following Sept. 11, 2001, Journal staffers returned to the paper's offices at 200 Liberty Street in Manhattan to recover what they could. They took these photos during their visit. .This is also a moment to salute George W. Bush. After 9/11, Mr. Bush began the counterattack that became the war on terror, developed and expanded the military and intelligence means to fight it, and never flagged in its pursuit even as his political opposition derided him for his determination. The attack even looks to be a vindication of Mr. Bush's interrogation policies, as U.S. sources say the initial break that led to the operation, concerning a bin Laden courier, came several years ago from Guantanamo detainees.

The most striking fact of Mr. Obama's prosecution of the war on terror is how much it resembles Mr. Bush's, to the consternation of America's anti-antiterror left. This includes the strategy to pursue terrorists in their sanctuaries, keeping them on defense and less able to plot against U.S. targets.

No doubt bin Laden's demise will cause some to declare victory in the war on terror, and to urge that we now negotiate a truce with the Taliban in Afghanistan. This sentiment will be heard loudly in Pakistan, which seems to want America out of its region, as well as among Americans tired of the costs of fighting in faraway places.

But the very fact that the U.S. felt obliged to issue a world travel warning at the moment of bin Laden's death shows that the terror threat remains without him. Al Qaeda has evolved in this decade, with smaller cells, new leaders and other sanctuaries. The branch in Yemen is especially dangerous, having played a role in at least two terror attempts on the U.S. mainland. Now is the time to press the advantage, not assume the threat is past.

Continuous Updates News updates and reactions from around the world.

U.S. Forces Kill Osama bin Laden How bin Laden Was Found Video: Obama's Speech Read Obama's Speech .In this context, we should add that the U.S. decision to dispose of bin Laden's body at sea strikes us as a potential mistake. We understand the instinct to respect Islamic rituals and dispose of the body within 24 hours, but al Qaeda and others may now try to dismiss the entire episode as U.S. propaganda. Notwithstanding White House assertions today of positively identifying bin Laden's DNA, we hope the U.S. took photos of the dead bin Laden and that those will be released in a formal, public briefing on the evidence with dispatch. The U.S. should not feed the myth that bin Laden was a model of Islamic piety when in fact he perverted Islam's tenets for his own political uses.

We should also add a word about Pakistan and its habit of fighting on both sides of the antiterror war. Abbottabad is not some distant outpost in that country, and it is hard to believe that some in Pakistan did not know of bin Laden's hideout. U.S. officials clearly believed they couldn't trust Pakistani intelligence with what we were learning about bin Laden, a mistrust born of hard experience.

Many Pakistanis will be outraged at the violation of their sovereign territory, but if Pakistan won't behave like a genuine ally then the U.S. must see to its own self-defense. The Pakistan government, and especially its military, would be wise to see the bin Laden operation as proof that the U.S. will act if Pakistan will not. The best security for Pakistan is to defeat the Taliban, not to keep using it as a weapon to bleed America in Afghanistan.

***Much as during the decades of the Cold War, the "long war" on terror has made many Americans tire of the fight, especially in the absence of cheering crowds waving U.S. flags in Paris or Palermo. But we cannot forget that this is a war for national survival against enemies who would annihilate our cities if they could. The death of bin Laden is a measure of justice for the thousands he killed. As important, it is a warning to others who would kill Americans that they will meet the same fate, no matter how long it takes or where they try to hide.

QUETTA: Hundreds took to the streets of Quetta on Monday to pay homage to Osama bin Laden, chanting death to America and setting fire to a US flag, witnesses and organisers said.

Angry participants belonging to a religious party in Quetta, the capital of southwestern province Baluchistan, were led by federal lawmaker Maulawi Asmatullah. They also torched a US flag before dispersing peacefully.

It was the first rally in Pakistan after the United States announced that bin Laden had been killed in an overnight commando mission in Pakistan.

Organisers said between 1,000 and 1,200 people attended the rally, but witnesses put the figure closer to 800.

“Bin Laden was the hero of the Muslim world and after his martyrdom he has won the title of great mujahed (Muslim fighter),” Asmatullah said.

QUETTA: Hundreds took to the streets of Quetta on Monday to pay homage to Osama bin Laden, chanting death to America and setting fire to a US flag, witnesses and organisers said.

Angry participants belonging to a religious party in Quetta, the capital of southwestern province Baluchistan, were led by federal lawmaker Maulawi Asmatullah. They also torched a US flag before dispersing peacefully.

It was the first rally in Pakistan after the United States announced that bin Laden had been killed in an overnight commando mission in Pakistan.

Organisers said between 1,000 and 1,200 people attended the rally, but witnesses put the figure closer to 800.

“Bin Laden was the hero of the Muslim world and after his martyrdom he has won the title of great mujahed (Muslim fighter),” Asmatullah said.

Arabs in the village of Silwan, adjacent to the City of David neighborhood in Jerusalem, rioted Monday night in protest over the elimination of Osama Bin-Laden. The rioters were throwing stones at police and attempting to block roads.

Appeal For Calm In UK After Bin Laden Death 10 Comments5:01pm UK, Monday May 02, 2011

Mike McCarthy, North of England correspondent

The head of one of Britain's largest Muslim organisations has urged people to remain peaceful following the death of Osama bin Laden.

British Muslims have been urged to 'move on' after the death of Bin Laden

Councillor Salim Mulla, who is chairman of the Lancashire Council of Mosques, told Sky News: "I am appealing publicly to all Muslim communities wherever they may be that there is no backlash. We should now move on."

Cllr Mulla said although he was not critical of the American operation that resulted in the Bin Laden's killing, he thought many Muslims would be "irritated".

He said: "I really hope and pray that there will not be a backlash. I hope it won't happen and I can't see it happening.

"I have been very critical of American foreign policy in Afghanistan and Iraq, but it is time to move on.

"In relation to Osama bin Laden - we believe that the soul of anybody who dies belongs to God and he will now be accountable to God."

VIDEO - An imam from the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem vowed to take revenge over "the western dogs" for killing Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in Pakistan on Sunday.

Aftermath

US aims to destroy al-Qaeda / News agencies

Washington determined to bring down terrorist organization after successfully killing its leader Osama bin Laden, top Obama advisor says Full Story

In a Youtube video uploaded by the imam he said: "The western dogs are rejoicing after killing one of our Islamic lions. From Al-Aqsa Mosque, where the future caliphate will originate with the help of God, we say to them – the dogs will not rejoice too much for killing the lions. The dogs will remain dogs and the lion, even if he is dead, will remain a lion."

The imam then verbally attacked US President Barack Obama saying: "You personally instructed to kill Muslims. You should know that soon you'll hang together with Bush Junior."

"We are a nation of billions, a good nation. We'll teach you about politics and military ways very soon, with god's help," he vowed.

We've been told for almost a decade how Bin Laden doesn't represent islam. Why did OBL get a 'muslim' burial? Where are the global expressions of joy from the vast majority of peaceful muslims? Why so many angry words from this imam?

Picture from outside the compound and a very strange story in The Economist (http://www.economist.com/blogs/banyan/2011/05/al-qaeda_pakistan) about the lack of curiosity about who resided within. I was wondering what a million dollar shack looks like in Pakistan. "Local residents say that police regularly swept the area, roughly once a week, checking residents' IDs and sometimes looking inside homes." (but not this house)

I wonder whether the current kerfuffle over whether there was a legal obligation to invite OBL to surrender would be different had the Obama administration, and John Brennan in particular, not inexplicably displayed a certain hesitation on the question of capture.

Suppose that faced with that initial, and entirely predictable, question — did the SEALs attempt to capture Bin Laden? — Brennan had instead brooked no opposition and snapped back with visible irritation — of course they were not attempting to capture him, they were there to kill him and had been sent to kill him. This was an armed lethal attack upon a a criminal adversary of the United States in an armed conflict, without cavil or apology. They were sent to attack and kill him as someone who was targetable with lethal force and no warning at any time. Which, as explanations go, and at least as it appears at this moment, does have the virtue of being true, as well as legally sound.

The NGOs and advocates and activist-academics have an instinctive sense for exploitable weakness and go after it; after all it’s part of their job. Brennan (as well as later spokespeople, including Holder) was not direct in stating that of course it was legal to target OBL, legal to target with lethal force, legal to target without warning or invitation to surrender, and that has always been the US legal position. I don’t understand how this entirely obvious question wasn’t briefed and anticipated, with an answer directly from Harold Koh’s 2010 American Society of International Law address on exactly this point:

Some have argued that the use of lethal force against specific individuals fails to provide adequate process and thus constitutes unlawful extrajudicial killing. But a state that is engaged in an armed conflict or in legitimate self-defence is not required to provide targets with legal process before the state may use lethal force ....

The principles of distinction and proportionality that the US applies are … implemented rigorously throughout the planning and execution of lethal operations to ensure that such operations are conducted in accordance with all applicable law ....

Some have argued that our targeting practices violate domestic law, in particular, the longstanding domestic ban on assassinations. But under domestic law, the use of lawful weapons systems — consistent with the applicable laws of war — for precision targeting of specific high-level belligerent leaders when acting in self-defence or during an armed conflict is not unlawful, and hence does not constitute ‘assassination’.

Isn’t that what the US government actually thinks is legally correct? Of course it is — it was stated a year ago as the “considered view” of the United States government by the chief international and foreign relations legal counsel to the United States. And isn’t this what it must eventually get around to saying, no matter what? It seems peculiar that high level officials would seem unprepared to articulate this. And had it done so, I wonder if some of the challenges to its position that the administration faces on its Europhile left wing would not have found far less traction. I agree that ultimately these are not politically serious objections and generally are aimed at appealing to various constituencies among the advocacy communities.

Still, the administration is in a strange position — not one I would have anticipated. And not one the administration would have anticipated either, I reckon:

A strand of the left wing insisting that OBL should have been arrested or at least killed resisting arrest for the sake of good legal form;a strand of the right wing crying vindication for enhanced interrogation techniques and, it desperately hopes, crucial information obtained through waterboarding; anda middle wing, including most of the left and right and in-between, looking at where OBL was living in Pakistan and among whom, and thinking, WTF?

(Update: The question raised in some of the comments of refusing quarter or refusing surrender is a separate one. Firing on a lawful target, even an unarmed one and even when one knows a human target is unarmed, is not unlawful — that is what potentially happens when one drops a bomb, after all. Refusing to grant quarter or refusing to grant surrender, on the other hand, is a serious war crime.

However, precisely because it is so serious, the act of surrender requires clear evidence of completion and, because it is fraught with risk and unknowns, is a far more difficult act to establish as a legal fact than is ordinarily supposed. Over the last several years, I’ve had many discussions with DOD lawyers and JAG, reviewing draft manuals and the like, and at first I was astonished at how much attention was paid by operational law of war lawyers — the JAG tactically advising in the field — to the nitty-gritty of this topic. They anxiously wanted to discuss and write down practical instructions on many distinct situations. They wanted to cover the many ways in which forces should not rush to assume that surrender was intended, or assume who exactly was surrendering, whether they would stop surrendering when their own superiors or comrades told them no or kept firing, what happens when individuals try to surrender piece-meal, by individuals but not under responsible command, if you an even know who that is on short notice, and you’re not sure who or whether it’s real — under what circumstances does any of this stop combat and with respect to whom?

We walked through these and many other situations from records of what had happened in many actual tactical situations, and not infrequently with grim results for attackers who had thought surrender by the other side was underway, and it wasn’t. In most of those cases, no perfidy or bad faith was involved, just uncertainty and fog of war on both sides.

This is a topic for another post, but surrender is a vital rule and an easy one to state in the abstract — but far more complicated, even when acting in good faith on both sides, on the ground. And, operational law lawyers emphasize, until that quite fraught legal act of surrender is accomplished, an attacker has no obligation to stop, or even pause in the attack, because so pausing might well cause the attacker to cede the initiative in the element of surprise on the other side that allows the adversary enough time to regroup and turn the tide. Is that subject to bad faith? Yes, just as perfidy and bad faith on the other side might happen.)

(I’ve also cleaned things up a little to emphasize that I think the fragmentation of the debate involves splinters of the right and left. A couple of the commenters were right in pointing out that I had carelessly taken “left” and “right” as whole things. However, when one looks abroad, I do believe that more important legal commentators — a Special Rapporteur at the UN, for example, Martin Scheinin — do indeed take the view that some form of invitation to surrender should have been made. I persist in my view that, however fringe that view is in the US, it has a lot of traction among the international advocacy community, in Europe, at the UN, among the NGOs, and unless confronted directly, will have the effect of reshaping the narrative internationally to a much greater degree than the administration seems to understand.)

With the killing of Osama bin Laden, we return to the age old question: which came first, the chicken or the egg?

Or, in our context, which came first—the jihadist vision or the jihadist? The ideology or the ideologue?

Did Osama "create" the ideology of jihad, or did the ancient ideology of jihad create him—and countless like him, past, present, and future?

Years ago, Ayman al-Zawahiri, now al-Qaeda's undisputed leader, placed it all in context. After he was asked about the status of bin Laden and the Taliban's Mullah Omar, he confidently replied:

Jihad in the path of Allah is greater than any individual or organization. It is a struggle between Truth and Falsehood, until Allah Almighty inherits the earth and those who live in it. Mullah Muhammad Omar and Sheikh Osama bin Laden—may Allah protect them from all evil—are merely two soldiers of Islam in the journey of jihad, while the struggle between Truth [Islam] and Falsehood [non-Islam] transcends time (The Al Qaeda Reader, p.182).

In short, bin Laden's death, while intrinsically good, has no instrumental value against the jihad—a phenomenon that "transcends time" and "is greater than any individual."

a) He appears to have gotten it right concerning the question presented here;b) The man's writings while prof at Harvard show him to be a serious advocate of undermining US sovereigty via treaties, the UN, and such. His position now at the State Dept puts him in the perfect position to do great harm. Watch out for this guy.

Intelligence analysts are sifting through phone numbers and email addresses found at Osama bin Laden’s compound to determine potential links to Pakistani government and military officials while U.S. officials and analysts raise concerns about the safety of Pakistan’s nuclear materials.

According to three U.S. intelligence officials, the race is on to identify what President Obama’s top counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan, has called bin Laden’s “support system” inside Pakistan. These sources sought anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to reporters.

“My concern now is that we cannot exclude the possibility that officers in the Pakistani military and the intelligence service were helping to harbor or aware of the location of bin Laden,” said Olli Heinonen, who served as the deputy director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) from 2005 to 2010.

“What is to say they would not help al Qaeda or other terrorist groups to gain access to sensitive nuclear materials such as highly enriched uranium and plutonium?”

The U.S. has worried quietly about the infiltration of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and military for years. Those concerns heightened in recent months when the CIA learned that bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad was a stone’s throw from Pakistan's military academy.

Politico first reported this week that CIA Director Leon E. Panetta told members of Congress that bin Laden’s clothing had two phone numbers sewn into it at the time of the raid. Those numbers and other contacts found at the compound are key clues in an effort to determine what elements of Pakistan’s national security establishment provided support to bin Laden and al Qaeda.

“I can tell you that concern about al Qaeda and other terrorists’ infiltration into the ISI is not new on the part of the Congress or the [George W.] Bush and Obama administrations,” said Rep. Steve Rothman, a New Jersey Democrat who serves on two House Appropriations subcommittees that fund defense and foreign aid.

Mr. Rothman has attended top-secret briefings on the Abbottabad raid and the impact of the raid on Afghanistan and Pakistan.

“As a matter of course, and for good reason, the materials that were removed from bin Laden’s home in Pakistan are being run down for leads that could assist the United States in apprehending individuals or entities who have sought to harm Americans or who have enabled others to harm Americans,” he said.

Another U.S. intelligence official told The Washington Times that other phone numbers and emails were recovered in the raid.

Did Naval Burial Ceremony for Bin Laden Curse Jews and Christians, and Confer Pardon and Paradise on the Muslim Mass Murderer?

May 7th, 2011 by Andrew Bostom

Anneke Green has a disturbing analysis in the Washington Times which indicates the very likely specifics of the burial ceremony aboard the USS Carl Vinson—repeatedly noted by witless counter-terrorism czar John Brennan to be in strict “conformance to Islamic requirements”—for pious Muslim jihadist Osama Bin Laden, orchestrator of the mass murder of Americans on 9/11/2001.

As Green reports, “Navy Military Funerals, (pp. 34-35)” a protocol developed by the Navy, describes in explicit detail what transpires during a Muslim sea burial:

The body must have been washed and wrapped “as required for the bodies of Muslims,” which refers to ceremonial cleanings that must be done by another Muslim. Those who have gathered to pray at the burial—ostensibly crewmembers since family is not allowed at sea burials—must face Mecca.

But the most shocking details Green has uncovered concern the formal funeral prayers which must be uttered—as specified by the Navy—during the segment of the burial ceremony in which supplication for the Muslim decedent is made. The requisite prayer includes the following statements:

“O Allah, forgive him, have mercy on him, pardon him, grant him security, provide him a nice place and spacious lodgings, wash him (off from his sins) with water, snow and ice, purify him from his sins as a white garment is cleansed from dirt, replace his present abode with a better one, replace his present family with a better one, replace his present partner with a better one, make him enter paradise and save him from the trials of grave [sic] and the punishment of hell.”

But what Green’s discussion omits is that before this supplication, the required prayer service (see p. 34) includes the opening sura (chapter) of the Koran, or “Fatiha”. As copiously documented by the most authoritative Muslim Koranic commentaries—past and present—verse 1.7 from this sura includes an eternal curse upon Jews and Christians, as noted in this official modern Koranic translation by Drs. Muhammad al-Hilali and Muhammad Khan (p.12):

“The Way of those on whom You have bestowed Your Grace, not (the way) of those who earned Your Anger (such as the Jews), nor of those who went astray (such as the Christians).”

For example, the 2008 English translation (by a pious Muslim translator) of the classical single volume Koranic commentary Tafsir al-Jalalayn, proclaims,

“This translation gives non-Arabic speakers access to one of the seminal works of classical tafsir literature. It is hoped that it will prove a valuable aid to the correct understanding of the Qur’anic Revelation throughout the English-speaking world.”

As the Koranic commentary Tafsir al-Jalalayn explains, Muslims are told in the preceding verse, Koran 1:6,

“Guide us on the straight path” means, direct us to it.

The commentary continues,

It is followed by its appositive [in verse 7], “…the Path of those You have blessed,” with guidance, “not of those with anger on them,” who are the Jews, “nor of the misguided,”who are the Christians. The grammatical structure here shows that those who are guided are not the Jews or the Christians. Allah Almighty knows best what is correct, and to Him is the return and the homecoming. May Allah bless our Master Muhammad and His family and Companions and grant them abundant peace always and forever. Allah is enough for us and the best Protector. There is no strength nor power except by Allah, the High, the Immense.

The modern Koranic commentary Ma’ariful Qur’an, written by Maulana Mufti Muhammad Shafi (1898-1976), former Grand Mufti of (pre-Partition) India, and founder of Darul Ulum Karachi, is the best known Koranic commentary in Urdu. This modern Koranic exegesis comports with the classical commentary on verse 1:7, highlighting the Koran’s strident Antisemitism, and accompanying Christianophobia:

Those who have incurred Allah’s wrath are the people, who in spite of being quite familiar with the commandments of Allah willfully go against them out of a calculated perversity or in the service of their desires, or, in other words, who are deficient in obeying divine injunctions. This, for example, was the general condition of the Jews who were ready to sacrifice their religion for the sake of a petty worldly gain, and used to insult and sometimes even to kill their prophets.

As for (those who go astray), they are the people who, out of ignorance or lack of thought, go beyond the limits appointed by Allah, and indulge in excess and exaggeration in religious matters. This, for example, has generally been the error of the Christians who exceededthe limits in their reverence for a prophet and turned him into a god. On the one hand, there is the rebelliousness of the Jews who not only refused to listen to the prophets of Allah but went on to kill them; on the other hand, there is the excessive zeal of the Christians who deified a prophet.

There is more than ample reason to believe that the Navy Military Funerals protocol was indeed followed—a logical inference, which at any rate should be confirmed or denied by release of the reported video footage of Bin Laden’s “ceremonial burial”—because as Anneke Green notes:

According to the Pentagon, “prepared religious remarks” were read at bin Laden’s funeral, but when asked whether his burial was performed according to Navy Military Funeral protocol, they had “no additional operational details or comments to make.” Mr. Brennan, however, in his Monday briefing on the bin Laden operation, reassured reporters that, “Burial at sea takes place on a regular basis. The U.S. military has the ability to ensure that that burial is done in a manner that is, again, consistent with Islamic law, as well as consistent with what the requirements are for a burial at sea. And so that burial was done appropriately.”

The grotesque dhimmitude in these apparent details—so destructive of our nation’s soul, in accord with the fundamental goal of Islamic supremacism—defies speech, and demands a thorough public airing for all Americans, first and foremost those whose family members were slaughtered during the 9/11/2001 acts of jihad terrorism.

My Take: Sea burial shows U.S. religious literacyEditor's Note: Stephen Prothero, a Boston University religion scholar and author of "God is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions that Run the World"

A few years ago, I wrote a book decrying religious illiteracy in the U.S. population and in the U.S. government. Since that time, I have tried to demonstrate the huge cost of our ignorance of Islam in Iraq, Afghanistan and the wider Muslim world.

So it is only fair to acknowledge when U.S. officials demonstrate real religious literacy, as they have done with the death and burial of Osama bin Laden.

Over the last generation, American diplomatic and military actions overseas have been hurt by a woefully shallow understanding of Islam. Whether you were for or against U.S. military intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan, you had to admit that in each case Americans went into a country whose language they did not speak and whose culture they did not understand.

Our lack of understanding of Islam’s Sunni-Shia split, for example, cost us dearly in both wars.

As I watched the story of bin Laden’s death unfold Sunday night, I was preoccupied with the question, “What are they going to do with the body?”

If they buried it in a marked grave, that grave would almost certainly become a pilgrimage destination for Islamic extremists worldwide — a Mecca to Islamist martyrdom. If they buried it in an unmarked grave, dozens of such sites would likely turn up, each claiming to house the sacred relics of the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks. And if they desecrated the body in any way, there would be hell to pay not only among bin Laden’s supporters, but also in the wider Muslim world.

Prothero: Burying bin Laden at sea an elegant solution

I was hoping against hope that people in the Obama administration had been considering these implications. And apparently they were.

At some point between the moment this special operation was planned and the moment it was completed, U.S. officials went to the trouble to learn that when a Muslim dies, the body is washed, wrapped in a white cloth and buried. They also learned that prayers are said over the body before it is laid to rest.

U.S. officials then put this education into action in a manner that was both in keeping with Islamic customs and in U.S. national interests.

Everything they did underscored a point former President Bush and President Obama have made repeatedly: that the United States is at war not with Islam but with terrorism.

By giving bin Laden’s body a burial in the Arabian Sea, they prevented his followers from turning any specific site into a sacred place where they could visit his body and dedicate their own bodies to his cause. But by giving him a proper Islamic burial, they showed respect for Islam.

Muslims will of course disagree about whether a sea burial was proper in this case. From an Islamic perspective, land burial is clearly preferable, but burial at sea is allowed in exceptional cases. The only question here is whether this was sufficiently exceptional.

What is not up for debate, however, is the fact that in this case the Obama administration and the U.S. military demonstrated real religious literacy. They should be commended for that, as well as for tracking down Osama bin Laden.

Mourners gather in Istanbul to give al-Qaeda leader burial rites – even though he was buried at sea. 'US, UK, Israel murdered a martyr,' mourners chant

Aviel Magnezi Published: 05.08.11, 20:16 / Israel News

Thousands participated in a funeral ceremony for assassinated al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in Istanbul on Friday, following Muslim burial rites but not including an actual burial.

Bin Laden was taken out by Navy SEAL troops last week and was subsequently buried at sea.

"The US, UK and Israel are the murderers of the martyr," the participants chanted. "The US is the terrorist, bin Laden is the warrior."

The mourners carried pictures of bin Laden and signs condemning his assassination, and called the man who planned the September 11, 2001, terror attacks that killed thousands of Americans "a beautiful, wise man, a warrior for Islam."

The mourners, who gathered near Istanbul's Fatih Mosque, which is located in the area that is considered Turkey's epicenter of Islamic extremism, burned Israeli, American and British flags, and prayed facing a stone bench that traditionally holds the body of the deceased.

Radicals warn 'it is only a matter of time' before another atrocity EDL member burns Bin Laden effigy among extremist Muslims

A protest by hundreds of Osama Bin Laden supporters sparked fury outside the US Embassy in London today as they staged a mock 'funeral service' for the terror leader.Police stepped in to separate the protesters and members of the English Defence League amid threats of violence from both sides.Radicals carrying placards proclaiming 'Islam will dominate the world' branded US leaders 'murderers' and warned vengeance attacks were 'guaranteed'.

After approving the Navy SEALs’ mission to kill Osama bin Laden (or allowing Leon Panetta to approve it, as some reports indicate), Barack Obama has been in full retreat mode, doing everything he can to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Most notoriously, he ordered a full Muslim burial for Osama bin Laden, contradicting his own claim that bin Laden was “not a Muslim leader.”

Even worse, when Islamic groups started to complain about the fact that bin Laden was buried at sea, rather than on land in accordance with Islamic law, Obama took pains to assure the world that the American troops involved in the burial were “respectful of the body” of bin Laden.

The word “respectful” is all-important, because the sea burial had once again plunged those ever-fragile Islamic supremacists into a crisis of self-esteem. Sheikh Omar Bakri Muhammad, a former resident of the United Kingdom who—until he left on a jaunt to Lebanon and wasn’t allowed back into the country—used to boast that one day the “black flag of Islam” would fly over 10 Downing Street, fulminated that “the Americans want to humiliate Muslims through this burial, and I don't think this is in the interest of the U.S. administration.”

This is a man, mind you, who didn’t find anything “humiliating” about 3,000 dead Americans on 9/11. On the contrary, Muhammad celebrated the Islamic jihadist murderers of those Americans as “The Magnificent 19.” But of course, those dead were infidels—Bakri has apparently not picked up on the new theme from the Islamic supremacist propaganda machine in the U.S., that Muslims were killed in the twin towers' collapse, and therefore a triumphal mosque at Ground Zero is altogether fitting and proper.

Another Islamic cleric, the Iraqi Sheikh Abdul-Sattar al-Janabi, warned about Osama’s sea burial that “what was done by the Americans is forbidden by Islam and might provoke some Muslims. It is not acceptable, and it is almost a crime to throw the body of a Muslim man into the sea.”

Al-Janabi is not on record saying that the 9/11 attacks were “forbidden by Islam” or were “almost a crime.” But again, they were just infidels. The body of the great hero is another thing altogether.

And instead of telling these men and other outraged Muslims to take a long walk off a short pier, Barack Obama granted that they had a point, assuring the media that American personnel were “respectful of the body.” He thus demonstrated (yet again) that he was interested in taking pains not to “humiliate Muslims,” and that he was being careful not to do anything that was “forbidden by Islam and might provoke some Muslims,” much less anything that an Islamic cleric would classify as “almost a crime.”

In displaying such sensitivity, Obama wins no points in the Islamic world. He only appears as what he is, which is weak and unwilling to do what is necessary to defeat the Islamic jihad that will be in no way stopped by the death of Osama bin Laden.

In 1945, when Adolf Hitler committed suicide in his besieged Berlin bunker, German officials were careful to burn his body. They wanted to make sure his corpse didn’t fall into the hands of the Russians. They knew the Russians were not likely to give Hitler a respectful Aryan funeral, but would probably display his body as a trophy. Imagine if Hitler had been captured and killed by American troops. Can you envision FDR ordering that he be given a dignified funeral and burial?

Of course he would not have, for to have done so would have been to suggest some legitimacy to this genocidal monster's actions, his life, and his legacy. And in saying (counterfactually) that Osama bin Laden was “not a Muslim leader,” Obama seems to have been trying to deny the al-Qaeda chief exactly that. So why then turn around and force American troops to endure the rites of the very religion that inspired bin Laden to commit mass murder in the first place?

It was no less absurd and insulting than the Americans’ burying Hitler with a Nazi flag draped over his coffin would have been in 1945. Obama owes the American people an apology.

ISLAMABAD: There has been a record sale of posters of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan after the al-Qaida leader was gunned down in a daring US commando raid May 2 in the country, a media report said on Tuesday.

More than 100,000 posters of Osama Bin Laden have been sold since his death, the Online news agency reported citing the print industry. It added that the volume of sale is increasing daily.

Osama's death on May 2 ended nearly a decade-long hunt for the US's most wanted terrorist. He was blamed for the terrorist attacks in the US in September 2001 in which nearly 3,000 people were killed.

Boy, when the "Vast majority of peaceful muslims" hear about this, they are going to be pissed!

I wont go into great lenghts here, because I am still putting together the mega response in the Anti semitism thread, and I do not want to open two fronts at once, but GM, how exactly does the fact that osamas posters have big sales, connect with peacful or not so peaceful Islamism ?

I am sure the topic is way more volatile in the US, but overseas the man, is somewhat an icon, albeit a very controversial one. His rise, fall and eventual death are now a thing of the annales, and like all annales of controversial people, they leave an impression, a romanticised, poetic reverberation. Like a Byronian fallen angel, almost.

Here, his death is mostly taken with a distrustful resignation of Americas crediblity.People were shrugging the news " Empire killed the man" left right and centre. "Wow tough it out Empire, you just might hit base 2". Today alone Ive seen 3 college juniors walk around downtown with a che-guevarra-like Osama face outline, that said : "Heaven is great". Surely this must mean Islamification (the evil one) of Europe is just about finished

I tapped alot tonight, so the lack of oxygen in the brain might disrupt the thought flow of the post

If there was a run on Hitler posters in Germany, would that suggest something about his popularity amongst the Germans?

The ignorant love to cling to the images and ideas of evil men. Che is popular on t-shirts, despite his murderous acts and ideas. Castro is praised by leftist dilettantes who never seem to move to his tropical prison. I guess Kim Jung-Il just isn't photogenic enough.

Sneering at America is nothing new for europeans. It usually on stops momentarily when America's rescue is needed and then resumes immediately afterwards. Usually between sips of cola and bites of cheesesburger as they wait in line to watch a movie made by Hollywood.

A Hollywood movie that often about a rogue CIA being challenged by a rogue (e.g. the Bourne trillogy) or evil white racists (e.g. the Clancy movie that changed the bad guys from Islamo Fascists in the book to , , , somebody white, I forget who) but never about the evils of Stalin, Marxism, the oppressions of the Soviet Empire blah blah

"The sum of all fears" changed the bad guys in the book (jihadists) to eastern european neo-nazis for the movie. I think we are all aware of the looming threat from eastern european neo-nazis and the horrific death toll they've racked up.....

Omar bin Laden, who has been based in the Gulf in recent years, did not immediately respond to emailed and telephoned requests for comment.

The letter said, in part: "We hold the American President (Barack) Obama legally responsible to clarify the fate of our father, Osama bin Laden, for it is unacceptable, humanely and religiously, to dispose of a person with such importance and status among his people, by throwing his body into the sea in that way, which demeans and humiliates his family and his supporters and which challenges religious provisions and feelings of hundreds of millions of Muslims."The letter said the U.S. administration had offered no proof to back up its account of the mission. It alleged the goal of raid had been to kill and not arrest, adding that afterwards the American commandos had "rushed to dispose of the body".

Some Muslims have misgivings about how U.S. forces killed bin Laden in a raid in Pakistan on May 2 and disposed of his body in the ocean.

Questions have multiplied since the White House said the al Qaeda leader was unarmed when U.S. helicopter-borne commandos raided the villa where he was hiding in the city of Abbottabad.

Bin Laden's swift burial at sea, in what many Muslims say was a violation of Islamic custom, has also stirred anger.

ISLAMABAD/QUETTA: Parliamentarians were stunned on Tuesday when a lawmaker led prayers for al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, defying calls from Deputy Speaker Faisal Karim Kundi that he needed permission to do so.

At the National Assembly session, Maulvi Asmatullah, an independent candidate from NA-264 stood up and said Bin Laden had reportedly been given funeral services by the Americans and “we should pray for him”.

The prayer service hardly lasted a minute in which two JUI-F legislators from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, former federal minister Attaur Rehman and Laiq Muhammad Khan, participated.

The deputy speaker was administering the proceedings on a private members day, but he could not convince the lawmakers to stick to the rules of business. Osama bin Laden was killed in a US operation in Abbottabad in the early hours of May 2.

Earlier, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani said in the National Assembly that “Osama bin Laden was the most wanted terrorist and enemy number one of the civilized world.

Elimination of Osama bin Laden, who launched waves after waves of terrorist attacks against innocent Pakistanis, is indeed justice done. However, we are not so naďve to declare victory; missions accomplished, and turn around.”

The first of its kind prayer service at the floor of the National Assembly reflected a divergent view from the official stance over the killing of Bin Laden.